Can we Talk?

Posted on 10/17/2013

Woman’s Day- Ellen Goodman and The Conversation Project were featured in Woman’s Day magazine. Ellen tells the story of her mother’s death and the importance of The Conversation Project in preventing people from suffering a “hard death.”

“This is how I remember the last Thanksgiving of my mother’s life: My family gathered across zip codes and generations to share turkey, lemon pie and a side dish of family stories. For the first time, my mother wasn’t at the table. She was two miles away in nursing care, sleeping through her final days.

The next day, I raced out to get pictures printed. I thought maybe I could magically rouse–or at least comfort–my 92-year-old mother with photographs of her great-grandchildren, the ones she could no longer recognize since dementia had overcome her memory. But before I left to go to her, the phone rang and caller ID showed the name of her care facility. With chilling premonition, I answered. Her gentle nurse told me that my mother had ‘passed away…'”